Dusty: Reflections of Wrestling's American Dream (21 page)

Juanita was a sweet lady, and she would hold all her checks because she never made that kind of money before. She didn’t know what to do with it. When I would see her she would ask me, “What should I do with these checks?”

I’d say, “Cash those fucking checks. Cash them and put the money in a bank, in your icebox or a dress shop or something. Just cash them.”

She made a lot of money, and of course she made huge money when she did the WrestleMania there with me. I was sad when I heard she passed away.

When I went back to WCW as their booker, which back then it wasn’t quite the full-blown executive producer role just yet; at first it was really cool. But it wasn’t long before the politics of the business started in again, some of which I talked about a little earlier.

“Dusty gave me the insight that somebody has got to draw the money. My dad always said that a night of wrestling is kind of like the Ringling Brothers Circus. If you looked at the Ringling Brothers Circus and there were ten high-wire acts, you wouldn’t draw the money. You’ve got to have the clowns, you’ve got to have the midgets, you’ve got to have the jugglers, you’ve got to have the tumblers, you’ve got to have lion tamers, you’ve got to have that whole show every night of a wrestling event … and Dusty was the high-wire act or the lion tamer, or whatever you wanted to say. But the lion tamer or the high-wire act also had to have the jugglers and the clowns and everything else to make the show complete. Just a good main event isn’t going to do it. You need the whole package to make a wrestling show, so the people will come back week after week after week … and Dusty understood that better than anybody.”

—M
IKE
G
RAHAM

There were just a few guys who said about me, “Man, what an asshole this guy is.” But when they really stop and think about it, they had no talent. I remember this one guy who used to badmouth me at WCW all the time was in all honesty booked because Jim Barnett called me in to his office and said please keep this guy here. Obviously that was the only reason the guy was there.

You talk about behind-the-scene politics? That is the worst, when you get called in to an office and are told to make sure so and so stays in the territory and keeps his job. Barnett would tell me I didn’t have to do shit with these guys, but that’s the reason why they were there. Certain members of the wrestling crew were kept on not because they were talented, but because Jim Barnett, one of the most powerful men in all of wrestling at the time, wanted them to stay on.

Now you’ve got to remember, I respected Barnett. My admiration for him was unreal, and I hope that has been apparent in what I have written about him thus far. He was my friend, booker, one of my mentors, and next to Eddie, the man I learned more from about this business than perhaps anyone else. But that is a part of the politics that you have to keep in mind. Because just like Andre would rib me to keep me grounded so I could keep things in perspective, Barnett would pull those type of power moves that sort of said, “You don’t have that much power just yet … you will, but you don’t have enough power just yet to tell me we can’t keep this guy here.”

And it didn’t just happen at WCW, it happened in other territories too, and I’ve seen it my whole career. There were always guys who were kept on in a territory because someone wanted them to stay in that territory, whether it was the owner, the booker, or the top draw. Whoever had the power would leverage that clout and use it frequently. And some guys were given titles, even World titles, again not because of their talent, but because they were kept around for a particular purpose, and I’m sure if you use your imagination, you can guess what that purpose was. So these guys were going to be made stars no matter what the consequences were to the territory. Like I said before, I never cared who was fucking who in the ass, except when it directly affected our business. So as reluctant as I was to discuss this, this is something that had to be told, because sometimes it did affect our business, and it was and is a part of the business that is just wrong, but it nevertheless is a part of this business, the dark side of this business.

On the positive side of that double-edged blade, however, if you were like me and always put business first, then that political influence meant you could not only book wrestlers who you knew had talent, but who you could trust and who you knew would draw. To me, that balance was important in order for both the office and me to be successful. So the thing is, a lot of people say this booker or that booker brings in their friends and sometimes that’s true, but if the booker or executive producer wants to keep his job, he sure as shit better bring in those friends who can draw. Because friends or no friends, if they don’t pull their own weight at the gate or through PPV buys, then you’re looking for a new job and somebody else is booking or executive producing.

“When Dusty left to go to New York (WWF), I ended up without a job because the suits at WCW didn’t know me. I went two years with no insurance and I was completely upside down. When Dusty got the call from Turner to go back as a booker, he took the job with the understanding that I would be his assistant and he brought me in and gave me an opportunity to make a living – he didn’t have to do that, but he did. While it was more physically demanding than I could really handle, Dusty opened a door for me when I had nothing in my life going for me.”

—”M
AGNUM
T.A.” T
ERRY
A
LLEN

So a lot of times when you see a booker or executive producer with a successful track record bring in certain people, while at first you may think he’s just bringing in his friends, the odds are he’s bringing in people who he can trust and who can help him accomplish his goals. After all, friendship is friendship, but “business is business.”

“A lot of people have knocked Dusty’s booking. But when you’ve been a booker for as long as he has, he probably booked a thousand workers … so he’s got five hundred workers who liked him and five hundred workers who thought he was the shits, because in every match somebody has to win and somebody has to lose. He did a lot of wonderful things … he worked with a lot of wonderful people … he did a lot of wonderful angles.”

—T
ERRY
F
UNK

C
HAPTER
11

I
f you were to ask 20 wrestlers, “What the most important aspect of their industry is … the most important thing they can do?” what would you say their answer should be? If they’ve got any sense for the business in them whatsoever, they’ll give you one answer and one answer only—draw a house … or in today’s world of PPVs, generate a high buy rate.

That right there is what our business is really all about. It ain’t about the politics, although the politics do exist. It ain’t about pleasing internet and sheet writers with fancy stunt wrestling moves, although all of those guys may have their own opinions on the business. It’s all about giving the majority of the fans a show that is so entertaining it draws them back to the next show so you can do it all over again.

You don’t need to be a fucking rocket scientist to understand that drawing a house is the backbone of our industry. You don’t need to know why E=mc
²
. But to be successful in the wrestling industry, you should know how to get from point A to point B, and understand that the shortest way to get there is a straight line.

How do you do that? You create storylines that have some believability in them. You have feuds that settle scores. You have angles that hit close to home. You look closely at pop culture and try to imitate what’s going on in the world around you. You use formulas that have worked in the business for 100 years and will work for the next 100 years. Do you really think “Stone Cold” Steve Austin was the first guy to drive a truck into a building and drink beers? Hell, I did that in ‘75-’76, right in the Tampa Armory, only difference is I didn’t do it on TV. The thing is, though, if you do it right, if you carry out your plan correctly, people will remember those storylines,
those feuds and those angles for years to come, no matter how many other people come after you and copy what you’ve done.

I’ve been one of the fortunate ones in the business who has been able to do some of those things correctly, and so with that in mind, in this chapter I’m gonna talk about some of my famous feuds, some of my favorite storylines, some of my favorite angles, and some of the people who were involved in them with me. I’m also gonna talk a little bit about some of the guys who I’ve met during my career, and finally, I’m gonna talk about the one thing that everybody seems to want to talk about with me—the so-called “Dusty Finish.”

There have been so many people who I have worked with over the years from the early days right up to the independents and TNA. It’s hard enough to stuff my 30-plus-year career into a few hundred pages, let alone a few paragraphs … it’s kind of like trying to fit into your favorite size 42 Levis even though you’re a size 46; while most of you is in there nice and snug, some of you just ain’t fitting in.

Anyway, there are so many guys who I can talk about, like Don Muraco. His nickname was “Magnificent,” and for a damn good reason. Don Muraco was the first really clean-ass natural best worker in the business, bar none. His background was surfing off the North Shore of Oahu in Hawaii—Sunset Beach—so he had unbelievable balance. There were nights when he used to work and when he was on, holy fuck he really was “Magnificent”! Unfortunately, however, there were also nights when he didn’t give a shit when he was at work, and in those cases it was like a fucking train wreck. Muraco first came to prominence on TBS in the angle that turned Roddy Piper from a heel to a babyface, when it looked like Don was going to attack Gordon Solie. Piper jumped in, and like they say, the rest is history. Some of Don’s matches in the Fed with “Superfly” Jimmy Snuka were classic, and in the Yellow Finger era he went from being “Magnificent” to being called “The Rock” and doing those God-awful videos like “Fuji Vice.”

Another of those guys was Jos LeDuc. Although he didn’t call himself Canada’s greatest athlete like Gene Kiniski or “Bulldog” Bob Brown did, LeDuc was known as “The Canadian Freight Train” and drew so much fucking money in the South and in Florida, it is unbelievable. But people today would ask, “Who’s Jos LeDuc?” These fuckers wouldn’t know Jos LeDuc from a douche or a dirt rag. But LeDuc was one of the toughest motherfuckers there was. In the days before video promos were real popular,
LeDuc did one where his back was against a wall and he held a truck at bay, which was revving its engine, with just the power of his legs. That little video right there put asses in the seats because just like Pak Song broke rocks with his bare hands like I talked about earlier, and that was legit. LeDuc held that truck back with his legs and that was legit, too.

Ox Baker is another guy who comes to mind. Ox drew a lot of money in his day, and while he had a hard time walking and chewing gum at the same time, he did an interview that was phenomenal. He had that look and that conviction in his voice that whatever he said, you would believe. If he said he was gonna kick somebody’s ass, you believed somebody’s ass was gonna be kicked. Ox was also one of those guys who used the business to get into other things and even had a role in the John Carpenter movie
Escape from New York
, playing this wild, scary-looking fucker. But that was Ox; he was a scary-looking fucker just walking around the dressing room.

Speaking of phenomenal interviews, arguably one of the greatest heel interviews I ever heard was from Curtis Iaukea, “King” Curtis. A lot of fans might say Ric Flair was the best, and I’m gonna get to Ric in a bit, but while he was good, I always thought he was repetitious in his interviews. Tully Blanchard was excellent in his own way because he spoke from the heart in that scary calm manner, kind of like that character out of
Cape Fear
. And Arn was good too, because when he did an interview, he always kept things in perspective. But Curtis was just unreal in that he said thought-provoking things and he was always a little different each time. Even years later when he did the thing on WCW playing Kevin Sullivan’s “father” and in that gruff, commanding voice would say, “Sullivan my son …” you just listened, because you knew he was going to say something powerful. He was just one of those guys who knew how to manipulate the audience with what he said, and his interviews were always spot on.

Other guys who come to mind for giving great interviews or promos are “Playboy” Gary Hart and Sir Oliver Humperdink, who I will talk about a little later on in the book; Kevin Sullivan who, like Flair, I’ll get to in a bit; “Superstar” Billy Graham who I spoke about earlier and who was just unbelievable with the gift of gab—
”I am so strong, they can smell me in the TV studio six blocks away!”
—and Killer Karl Kox. Like Jos LeDuc, many people today wouldn’t know Karl from shit, but Triple K was just one of those guys who could bring it during an interview. Karl was unique in that he was like one of the first guys I can remember fucking with an announcer
during an interview, like they were the only two people there and the audience was just eavesdropping in on their conversation or something; a style some guys in the WWF borrowed later on when working with Gene Okerlund. Karl also created the mythical “Alex” character, this unseen entity who would tell him what to do, thus putting into the audience’s mind that this guy was really off his fucking rocker, and we all know there ain’t anybody who’s more dangerous than some crazy bastard who talks to people who ain’t there. Years later when Rick Steiner was doing the “Varsity Club” gimmick in WCW, Sullivan suggested he borrow “Alex” to help him establish that he too was a little unbalanced. It worked.